Attentive Chanting

Kurma Dasa: A few of the devotees who had just received initiation also took the opportunity of speaking with Srila Prabhupada.
Vrisha: As Gaura Mandala Bhumi and I entered Prabhupada’s room, we found him in a very relaxed mood, reclining on his big bolster cushion behind his desk. We asked Srila Prabhupada the meaning of our names. Prabhupada told me that I was named after the bull carrier of Lord Siva. “But it is ‘Dasa’,” he said. “Always ‘Dasa’.”
Gaura Mandala Bhumi, Prabhupada explained, was the tract of land where Lord Caitanya performed many of His pastimes. He told Gaura: “So you should simply try to become a servant of that tract of land.”
Nartaki: I came to receive my second initiation. I brought my daughter Rasmin with me who was one year old at the time. Srila Prabhupada played for some time with Rasmin. He handed her a gulabjamun and as Rasmin reached out for it he grabbed her hand with his other hand and would not let go. She pulled and pulled and he also pulled. They played around for a little while. But then all of a sudden Srila Prabhupada became very grave. This was the moment he was going to give me my Gayatri mantra. He told me to concentrate. I pronounced one of the words wrong and he made me say it several times over and over again and he emphasised again and again that ‘now you are getting this Gayatri mantra, you must say it three times a day’. He made me promise that I would chant it attentively, that I would pronounce it properly and that I would chant it without fail, every morning, lunch and night.